Chapter
IV examined the influence which mid and late nineteenth century
European political pressure exerted
on the Ottomans, exploiting the latter’s vulnerability
following
the Crimean war. It also impacted on the Jewish population of Eretz
Yisrael- the Land of
Israel.

Chapter
V is prefaced by a discussion on the diverse
nature of Zionism and its distinction from European colonialism.
This is followed by a chronological continuation of the previous
Chapter, Chapter IV, (with some overlap) but viewed
from the perspective of European Jewry
whose experience was shaped
by its oppressed minority status within a gentile environment. This
experience ultimately led to the emergence of political Zionism as
the root and branch of Jewish nationalism and its acknowledgment as
an international movement.

The material presented hereunder
deals with the following topics:

Section
1Distinguishing
Characteristics of the European Jewish Population -
dispersion, lack of territorial sovereignty and minority persecution

Section
2 “Enlightenment
and its Impact on Western
European Jewry” reviews the political and
economic situation of the Jews ofWestern
Europe.

Section
3 contrasts
the situation of the
Jews of Eastern
Europe -Military
Conscription, Discriminatory Legislation and Pogroms -
where physical, political and economic pressure forced large segments
of the Jewish population to migrate mainly to the United States. Only
a very small percentage chose to strike outfor Palestine but
with an effect far beyond their number

Section
4 entitled “The
Precursors to Political Zionism in Eastern Europe”briefly describes
individual and small group attempts to settle unofficially in
Palestine and their reliance upon philanthropic sponsors. This
strategy was, however, unequal to the task of organising mass
emigration.

The
‘Dreyfus’ Case: The Catalyst for Political Zionism
(section 5.)ultimately spawned
an
emergent Jewish political leadership and organisation. This forms the
subject matter of the next chapter, Chapter VI which encompasses the
efforts of Theodore Herzl to found the
first Zionist institutions to gain international
recognition for the creation of a Jewish Homeland and which
were to provide, ultimately a formal, legal and constitutional
solution to the ‘Jewish Question’

Finally,
this Chapter closes with the impact which European Jewish immigration
to Palestine had on the Ottomans and on the Palestinian Arab
population (section 6).

Before
entering into the detail of this Chapter, two preliminary points
should be kept in mind a) the diverse elements of Zionism and b) the
non-colonial nature of Zionism.

The
DiverseNature
of Zionism

Zionism
never was nor is monolithic in its character. In no way did it
embrace the conventionally understood focus and objectives of
other nationalist movements. The latter are generally an indigenous
but minority population having a common language, religion and a more
or less occupying a defined territory. Any desire for
self-determination is generally rejected by the political-religious
regime under which that population is governed. Their aim is to
overthrow or secede from the regime which they view as oppressive.

In
contrast, the Zionist movement or rather its components comprised a
spectrum of ideological and cultural strands, in which each, with
varying degrees of commitment, advocated the restoration and
regeneration of the Jewish people in their reconstructed ancestral
homeland.

Despite these diverse philosophical threads, the
re-establishment of a Jewish homeland was the predominant and
cohesive force through which Zionist unity was achieved. This
resulted in the emergence of a political entity capable of gaining
international recognition while conserving the distinctiveness of its
components. These factional elements - a spectrum of secular groups -
some culturally emancipated others politically, socially and
economically diverse- together with religious Zionists were each
represented in the early Zionist movement.

These strands still prevail in
Israel’s contemporary political system. Its government has
always
comprised a coalition having no clearly defined, focused and united
set of policies. In times of peace and tranquillity, such government
may be an excellent example of democracy. In times of conflict,
however, the lack of unity creates unnecessary turmoil internally so
that any political or military action which is generated lacks
cohesion and concentration of purpose. Contemporary Israeli
Government policy is not expressed in a single unified voice, but in
multiple voices and enables her external political adversaries and
military opponents to exploit the internal divergences of opinion.

Zionism
As Distinct from Colonialism

Arab
opponents of Israel assert that a Jewish State is a Europeancolonial
intrusion into Middle-Eastern Islamic indigenous culture which is to
be resisted.

This accusation of colonialism carries
the full force of a political broadside against Zionism:
Colonialism in modern international parlance is anathema and is
opposed as being expansionist and imperialistic. It is the imposition
of a national sovereignty over territory beyond its borders.
Colonialism implies the settlement of population from the home
country, often accompanied by the exploitation, displacement or
extermination of an indigenous population. It is said to arise where
the objective of the incoming population is to convert, subdue and
rule the indigenous population of a given territory in accordance
with the values of the colonisers.

European colonial
imperialists of the eighteenth, nineteen and early twentieth
centuries tended to send plantation owner/managers, militia, civil
employees, merchants and traders to their colonies for the purpose of
spreading the hegemony of the mother country and exploiting the
natural resources discovered in the new land for the latter’s
economic benefit,

By
contrast, the objectives
underlying Jewish immigration to Palestine were the very antithesis
of colonialism. Zionism cannot be viewed as an attempt to extend the
sovereignty of the states whence the Jews migrated. Israel and
Zionism – of whatever strand - does not have and never had
any colonial
aspirations as defined above. The essence of Zionism is the peaceful
return to Eretz Yisrael of Jews forcibly dispersed and exiled against
their own volition.

It
is true that the catalyst for this return was the political and
economic oppression under which European Jewry suffered. However, as
Chapter II has shown, Jewry has maintained a continuous spiritual,
cultural and physical connection with Eretz Yisrael for over two
thousand years.

Chapter
IV has shown that early Jewish settlements were established in
Palestine by visionaries and pioneers who came, not as
“parasites”
with the intention of exploiting the existing population, but rather
with a desire to create with their own hands; becoming
self-sufficient, independent and living a life of dignity rather than
one of squalid poverty and social denigration. The principle of self-labour
was cardinal in Zionism.

The
point being emphasised here is that while the early Zionists
establishedcolonies as
a means of slow and gradual development of the
natural potential
of the land, present-day Israel does not espouse
‘colonial’
values or aspirations as above defined, despite some contemporary
claims to the contrary. The Palestinian claim that Israel’s
occupation of the West Bank amounts to colonial expansion will be
examined in depth in a later Chapter.

While
Jewish aspirations have moved in the direction of establishing a
Jewish majority and dominant culture in Israel, its Middle East
policy has been directed towards an ideal of co-existence with the
pre-existing population, not its obliteration. As will be
demonstrated in the next Chapter, Chapter VI, this very objective
found expression in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1922
Palestine Mandate and on the organisational, immigration and
developmental activities of the Zionist institutions which were in
subsequent years to carry the burden of establishing the Jewish
homeland in Palestine

Much
of the background to the Jewish immigration and land acquisition is
to be found in the many published histories on the origins of
Zionism, such as Gideon Shimoni, ‘The
Zionist Ideology’
(Brandeis University Press, Hanover NH , 1995); David Vital, ‘The
Origins of Zionism’
(Oxford University Press, London 1975); together with Ben
Halpern and Jehuda Reinharz, ‘Zionism
and the Creation of a New Society’(Oxford
University Press, New York, 1998); and in the biographies of
Zionist leaders: Chaim Weizmann, ‘Trial
and Error’
(Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn, 1972); Shabtai
Teveth’s ‘Ben
Gurion, The Burning Ground 1886-1948,
(Houghjton Mifflin, Boston, 1987); and Menachem Begin, ‘The
Revolt’(Nash
Publishing New York 1977). The material presented hereunder is
intended neither to be comprehensive nor to duplicate or summarise
what has already been researched and recorded.

1.
Distinguishing
Characteristics of European Jewish Population

a. Dispersion

In contrast to other religious
and ethnic populations who have tended to live in more or less
concentrated and defined territorial areas, the Jews, as a people and
as a religious-ethnic group, have experienced dispersion and
oppression. They also exhibit a number of other characteristics which
bear directly on both the early and contemporary Jewish resettlement
of Eretz Yisrael-Palestine.

Ever
since their expulsion from Palestine by Romans between 132-135 CE,
Jews have endured their dispersion in the belief in the eventually of
an ‘Ingathering’ which would involve a “
Return to the Land”
synonymous with ‘Redemption.’ As a consequence,
even if they had
been so permitted and welcomed by the indigenous people of the lands
in which they found themselves, Jews sought to gain equality with the
majority population without losing their identity through
assimilation. This was not because they held feelings of
superiority, but rather from the desire and the need to maintain some
semblance of their cultural and religious heritage.

b. Peoplehood Without
Territory

A second Jewish characteristic,
valid until the turn of the twentieth century, was that despite their
not having any defined territorial base under their political
control, Jews have maintained a sense of
‘peoplehood’ in terms of
their culture, literacy, religious practice and language. Religious
practice, in particular, ensured Jewish separateness. While
observance of the dietary laws, the Sabbath and other Old Testament
commandments lay at the base of their identity, literacy from a very
young age and the study of biblical texts and Talmudic analysis
provided Jewish males with tools to take advantage of the newly
emerging scientific and literary opportunities characteristic of
European enlightenment. In the process, however, adhesion to their
‘peoplehood’ came under threat.

c. Persecuted Minority

A third and important
characteristic which has had a very strong impact on the behaviour of
the contemporary State of Israel and its population in relation to
its neighbours is that the Jews have always constituted a minority,
generally persecuted, impoverished and downtrodden lacking security
of person, property or residence. This was especially true during the
Middle Ages in Europe, when persecution of Jews in Christian
countries was the rule rather than the exception.

Crusaders,
out of religious fervour, massacred Jews in their thousands.

In
1215 the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed an official policy of
restrictions similar to those of Islam and ordered all Jews to wear
distinctive badges.

Throughout
urban Europe Jews were forced to live in ghettos and their
freedom of movement restricted.

During
the 13th and 14th centuries several European monarchs, including
England’s Edward I in 1290 and French King Charles VI in 1394
confiscated Jewish property and expelled the owners, many of whom who
migrated eastwards to Germany, Poland and Russia.

The
Black Death of the 14th century also saw Jews massacred throughout
Europe after being falsely accused of causing the disease by poisoning
Christian wells.

Fifteenth
century Spain and Portugal witnessed systematic persecution
of Jews by the Catholic Church resulting in their eventual expulsion
from Spain in 1492 Spain and from Portugal in 1497 and their migration
to European Turkey.

By the end of the 16th century
in Western Europe only remnants of the old Jewish communities
remained.

Paradoxically,
the Catholic Church which constituted the major source of both
religious and temporal power, and also a major influence in the
spread of anti-Semitism, found itself under attack for its
impingement into secular areas of society and its autocratic wielding
of power.

The above explains to some
degree present-day Israel’s preoccupation with national
security.

2. The
‘Enlightenment’ and Its Impact on Western European
Jewry

The
Christian reformation movements in Europe (Lutherism in Germany
(1517); Calvinism in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands (1533);
and in England (1529-1534)) split the ubiquitous religious power of
the Roman Catholic Church, as did the 17th
century enlightenment movement in Germany, France and England reduce
its influence in temporal affairs. Culminating in the Peace of
Westphalia (May 15 - October 24, 1648) which followed the end the
Thirty Years War, the treaty brought about the separation of Church
and State in Western Europe and released intellectual and scientific
development from its religion-driven straight-jacket.

The
Enlightenment movement was predicated upon:

the
Universe being fundamentally rational and capable of being
understood through the exercise of human rationality;

scientific
discovery through empirical observation;

human
improvement through education; and

the
removal of religious doctrine as the basis for understanding the
physical and human worlds,

These assumptions together with
mercantilism and political emancipation constituted the building
blocks of the of the secular west-European states of France, Germany
and Britain.

In
an era in which the temporal power of European states was severed
from that of the Church and in which nation building became the
dominant political force, Jews were adversely affected to a
considerable degree. The anti-Semitic influences and attitude created
at the grass roots levels by the Church towards the Jews still
maintained their potency, more or less subliminally in Western
Europe. In Eastern Europe – Russia, Romania and Poland
–
anti-Semitism was overt and provided the groundswell for the Jewish
return to Israel. The catalyst, however, came from the West.

The
Protestant Reformation with its increased religious, political and
social freedom created an environment of sufficient tolerance to
enable Jews to re-establish themselves in Western Europe. In Britain,
Oliver Cromwell permitted their return in 1650, while in France the
Jews were enfranchised by the National Assembly in 1791, consistent
with the democratic concepts of the French Revolution. Napoleon,
during his military campaigns, opened the ghettos and emancipated the
Jews as he marched across Europe. Apart from the period between 1815
and 1860, when Jewish repression by states once subject to Napoleon
was reinstituted and his policies reversed, Jewish emancipation in
Western Europe became nominally secure.

Jewish
Emancipation in France was manifested in the removal of legal
obstacles that prevented individual Jews from advancing into society.
The free professions were open to them as were careers in government
administration and the Army.

The
emancipation of the Jews had far-reaching religious, cultural, and
political effects. Slowly, as Jews took their place in the modern
world, the wall erected around the Jewish community by strict,
traditional Judaism began to crumble. … By translating the
Pentateuch into German and teaching the value of cultural
affiliations between Jews and their non-Jewish environment,
Mendelssohn opened the route for the cultural contributions made by
later Jews, both to the Jewish community and to the world. One of the
results of his work was the Reform Judaism initiated by German Jews.
Many Jewish families discarded Judaism entirely, becoming Christian
to increase their cultural and civic opportunities, and this action
did not occasion the stern condemnation that it would have if taken
only a century before.JEWS.
[Internet]. 2009. The History Channel website. Available from : http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=213220
[Accessed 10 Mar 2009].

With some notable exceptions, the
assimilative process left almost untouched Jewish social
discrimination and in so doing it created an identity crisis for
those who saw themselves first and foremost, as nationalists of the
countries in which they resided, but of Jewish persuasion. This was
later to become a crucial factor in the political scandal which arose
out of ‘Dreyfus Affair’ which divided France in the
1890s and the
early 1900s.

Meanwhile,
emancipated Jews expressed their identity in establishing and
maintaining educational institutions that expounded universal
values, rather than
predominantly Jewish religious and cultural values as well as
providing moral and some financial support for their co-religionists
both in Eretz Israel and in Eastern Europe.

This
early divergence within European Jewry still remains a potent
divisive element in contemporary Israeli politics vis à vis
the
Palestinians.

The
emergent Western Europe became a beacon of physical, intellectual and
economic freedom for East European Jewry. The latter, by government
edict, was deprived of freedom of movement, constrained in employment
and suffered economic destitution. Jews became the object of physical
violence at the hands of the mobs in Russia, Poland and Rumania. (See Section3 below)

The
plight of East European Jewry galvanised philanthropists
and secular movements in Western Europe to protect the universal
human rights of Jews as citizens of countries in which they lived.
These included Sir Moses Montifiore and Baron Maurice de Hirsch and a
number Jewish secular organisations to whom they gave financial
support. The latter, while being committed to advancing projects of a
non-sectarian nature, also allocated some financial and technical
resources to advance Jewish financial and organisational interests in
Palestine, the most prominent of which were Alliance
Israélite Universelle
(AIU) and the Jewish
Colonial Association.

Founded
in Paris in 1860 by Adolphe Crémieux, the Alliance
Israélite
Universelle (AIU) was created in response to the ‘Damascus
Affair’
- an event in which Jews were falsely accused of having committed the
ritual murder of a Christian cleric and his servant. A number of Jews
made false confessions under torture and more arrests followed,
together with mob attacks on Jewish communities throughout the Middle
East.

The affair drew wide international attention, especially
in France, where it led to a formidable backlash against Jews. From
this tragedy, Jews learned to organise and to lobby publicly for the
equal protection of their civil rights.

In
addition to protecting Jewish human rights in their countries of
residence, one of the goals of the AIU was to combine the ideals of
self-defence and self-sufficiency through education and professional
development among Jews around the world. The seventeen founding
members of the organisation, amongst whom were doctors, teachers,
journalists, lawyers, and businessmen, represented late 19th
century Jewish liberal bourgeoisie - “beneficiaries of light
and
emancipation, deeply patriotic but simultaneously unwilling to disown
their roots.”
(see http://www.aiu.org/ANGLAIS/presentation_ang.htm#HISTORY)

In 1870, the
AIU succeeding in obtaining a gift from the Ottoman Empire of a lease
of a tract of land located near Jaffa, for the purpose of
establishing an agricultural school. This coincided with the
efforts of the messianic-driven rabbis to secure financing for
settlement projects to absorb the first wave of European Jewish
immigrants into Palestine. The combined efforts of the rabbis and the
liberal emancipated AIU led by Charles Netter, together with the
financial support of Sir Moses Montefiore, resulted in the
establishment of Mikve
Yisrael an institution
which in the future was to provide the educational foundation for
later immigrants who wished to engage in agriculture for ideological
reasons but lacked the technical know-how. In 1886 the school
attracted its first Jewish Sephardic agronomist, Yosef Niego to its
staff. He recruited at least one child from every pioneer village
founded by the “Hovevei Zion” settlers from Eastern
Europe and
trained them as farmers. They later became the backbone of Jewish
agriculture in Eretz Yisrael, such that Ben Gurion, Israel’s
first
prime minister, is reported to have said:

“The
State was
established thanks to Mikvei-Israel. If there was no Mikveh-Israel,
it is doubtful Israel could have been founded. Everything started
then. What we did was to complete the task politically and
nationally.”

In
addition to Mikve Yisrael, Rothschild’s beneficence was
expressed
elsewhere in Palestine. In 1878, with his financial support and the
ultimate agreement of the Sultan, religious pioneers from Jerusalem
were permitted to purchase some 3.4 sq. km of swamp land located near
the source of the Yarkon River, from the Arab village of Mulabbis.
After draining the swamp and overcoming malarial disease, the
Jerusalem leadership, augmented by European immigrants, were able in
1883 to establish Petah
Tikvah asthe
first successful
agricultural settlement distant from Jerusalem, organised on a
co-operative basis. The settlement became one of the models for later
migrants, particularly those escaping from the Russian pogroms.Although initially
the establishment of the school created Arab opposition, by 1914 itsstudent
bodyincluded about
a dozen Arabs.
This is indicative of the fact that before British involvement in the
government of Palestine, Jews and Arabs were able to co-operate with
each other in the development of the country. (Eric
Fischer,
The
Mikveh Yisrael School During the War Years 1914-18,
4 Jewish
Social Studies, (Jul., 1942), pp. 269-274)

b.
Jewish Colonial Association

One
other institution of importance which gave financial assistance to
Russian Jews wishing to migrate was the Jewish Colonial Association
(JCA). This is not to be confused with the Jewish Colonial Trust
–
the latter being a Zionist institution established in 1902 under the
auspices of the Zionist Congress.

The JCA, founded by
universal philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch in 1891, had as its
objective the rendering of assistance and relief to the oppressed,
poverty stricken East-European Russian Jewish population. This took
the form of extending financial support for Jewish education in
Eastern Europe, encouraging Jewish emigration from Russia to North
and South America and agricultural training for emigrant Jews and
their colonisation throughout the world. Although Eretz Yisrael did
not appear prominently as a preferred designation for Jewish
resettlement, the JCA did render financial assistance in the early
struggles of Jewish colonisation there.
The most notable of its
Palestinian activities was to take over the management of Baron
Rothschild’s settlements in 1906 when his French
authoritarian
bureaucrats were unable to work amicably with the immigrant
settlers. Dictatorial directives issued from above did not
sit
well with the more democratically and communally minded Russian
expatriates, who had migrated to escape such officialdom.

3. East
European Military Conscription, Discriminatory Legislation
and Pogroms

From the founding of the Kingdom of
Poland (1025–1569) through the early years of the
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was one of the most tolerant
countries in Europe and home to the largest and most significant
Jewish community in Europe. By the mid-16th century 80% of the
world's Jews lived there. However, its traditional tolerance began to
wane from the 17th century onward following the religious conflicts
arising out of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic
Counter-Reformation; conflict which resulted in three partitions of
the Polish State between 1772 and 1795 among Russia, Prussia and
Austria.

Most
Polish Jews now found themselves under Russian domination and the
previous policy of Jewish tolerance was reversed. To offset any
possible liberal tendencies, Russia instituted official policies of
Jewish persecution equal to that inflicted on medieval Jews.

Russian Jews were forbidden to
live outside specific areas, and their educational and occupational
opportunities were rigidly circumscribed. In particular, the Czarist
regime was at pains to isolate and render ineffective the importation
into Russia of West-European political ideas and influences which
might create any disturbance in the Russian Jewish population.

Created
under pressure to rid Moscow of Jewish business competition and the
"evil" influence of the Jews on the Russian masses, Czar
Cathrine II authorised, in 1791, the establishment of the Pale of
Settlement, an area covering present-day Poland, Latvia, Lithuania,
Ukraine and Belorussia, within which Russian Jews were compelled to
reside unless exempted by special permit.

Pale
of Settlement

Even
within the Pale, Jews were discriminated against: they paid double
taxes, were forbidden to lease agricultural land, run taverns or
receive higher education; they were excluded from employment in the
free professions and engaging in many trades. Along with the gentile
serfs their lives were one of severe economic hardship, poverty,
human degradation, intellectual and educational stagnation –
except
for traditional religious studies.

Ultimately
Imperial policy was aimed at eliminating the Jews by assimilation,
by violence and by emigration.

a.
Assimilation

The
Czarist regime under Nicholas I promoted assimilation of Jewish youth
into Russian society through harsh military conscription. Designed to
remove men from the Jewish community and make them more
"Russian”
legislation was introduced in 1827 compelling Jewish boys and men
between the ages of 12 and 25 to serve in the army for twenty-five
years. As a consequence many of the conscripts were unable to see
their families for years, and many were converted to Christianity. By
the time the law was rescinded in 1859, an estimated forty to fifty
thousand Jewish minors had been conscripted as cantonists (juvenile
conscripts). (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode6/documents/documents_7.html)

b.
Mob Violence -Pogroms

Encouraged
and even financed by the imperial government periodic massacres of
Jews were initiated in order to divert the attention of the Russian
populace from their discontent with the feudalistic system still
prevailing in the late 19th century.
The
first ‘pogrom’ to be so labelled was the
anti-Jewish rioting in
Odessa in 1821. Other anti-Jewish riots followed in 1859 and 1871.
Apart from the short period of liberalisation between
1860-1881 under Czar
Alexander II, the constant
lack of personal and property security motivated Jewish migration
from Europe in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

The
level of violence directed against Jews rose to a head on March 13,
1881 following the assassination of the Czar Alexander by a group of
radicals called 'Narodnaya
Volya'
or 'The People's Will.' There
would be two more pogroms between 1891 and 1906.

The
1881 event precipitated the rampage of thousands
of frustrated non-Jewish peasants through the Jewish neighbourhoods
of Kiev and Odessa and throughout the Pale of Settlement. With
the apparent acquiescence
of the government they killed, raped, looted, pillaged and wrought
havoc in at least 160 Jewish communities. The result was at least
20,000 Jews were homeless, $80 million in Jewish property was
destroyed and 100,000 Jews were reduced to complete poverty.

Alexander
II’s successor, Alexander III,
encouraged by the Russian Orthodox Church
led by Konstantin Pobedonostev,reverted
to the
earlier conservative and repressive regime.

The
situation was made worse by the anti-Semitic ‘May
Laws’
promulgated in 1882 that
were designated to make life intolerable for Russian Jews.
They especially affected those who had become assimilated. Enacted as
a temporary measure, the legislation remained in effect for more than
thirty years. It expressed a systematic policy of discrimination
against the Jews, banning them from living in Russian rural areas and
small towns; imposing quotas on the number of Jews admitted to high
schools and universities; and prohibiting them from practicing many
free professions and from holding public office. The
government encouraged Jewish emigration, and for those who chose to
stay, there was talk of reinstituting compulsory military service for
Jewish children. (Lloyd
D Harris, Sod Jerusalems:, Jewish
Agricultural Communities in Frontier Kansas,
Kansas Collection Bookswww.kancoll.org/books/harris/sod_chap01.htm
)

iii.
Emigration

Between
1880 and 1920 Russian anti-Semitism forced more than two million Jews
to migrate. Most of them went to the USA. However, in the mistaken
belief that their ocean carriers had brought them to America, many
immigrants found themselves landing in the United Kingdom - an event
which was to cause the promulgation of the Aliens Act by the British
government in 1905. (seeAliens
Acts 1905 and 1919http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conInformationRecord.35
)

Only a
relatively few migrants saw their future in Palestine. Professor
Martin Gilbert, in his seminal work on the history of Israel notes
that a very small percentage of Russian Jewish emigrants, never
more than 2 per cent per annum,
went each year to Palestine. But even this small percentage meant
that 25,000 Jews reached Palestine between 1882 and 1903. (Martin
Gilbert, Israel,
A History Black
Swan, Transworld Publishers, London 1999, p.5; see also Gur
Alroey Galveston
and Palestine:Immigration
and Ideology in theEarly
Twentieth Centurywww.americanjewisharchives.org/journal/PDF/LVI/AJA_LVI_06.pdf

4.
The Precursors to Political Zionism in Eastern Europe

In
addition to the lack of financial support, the Jews of Eastern Europe
lacked political leadership and a centralised organisation to
alleviate their situation.

A
few wealthy Jewish philanthropists and numerous informal groups
emerged to counter East European ethnic discrimination. Many of these
groups later became political movements, supporting settlement
institutions in Eretz Yisrael under the Zionist umbrella, and holding
a variety of ideologies, views, and forms of Jewish religious
orientation. The Zionist movement also unintentionally generated some
anti-Zionists, especially in Britain and the United States,
comprising people who had been successfully assimilated by the
majority culture and who feared that the establishment of a Jewish
homeland or state would undermine their newly-won
acceptance.

(see
Simon Dubnow, Israel Friedlaender, History
of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until the
Present Day (1915),
Avotaynu Inc, Bergenfield, NJ. 2000)

Hovevei Zion

Amongst
the informal groups which arose in response to Russian discriminatory
practices were those who saw their future in Palestine. Collectively
known as ‘Hovevei
Zion’ or Hibat
Zion’ they arose
simultaneously in an uncoordinated fashion. Their objective was to
promote Jewish immigration to Eretz Yisrael and to advance practical
Jewish settlement there. In 1890–1891 they found themselves
extending help towards the founding of Rehovot and Hadera and the
rehabilitation of Mishmar HaYarden. The May Laws, enacted under Czar
Alexander III, compelled these groups to operate clandestinely.
However, the branch of the movement in Odessa, known as the
‘Odessa
Committee,’ managed to gain official governmental recognition
as a
charitable organization in the Russian Empire under the title of
“Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in
Syria
and Eretz Israel.” As such, it was permitted to raise funds
and
organise meetings dedicated to the physical realisation of
establishing agricultural settlements in Eretz Yisrael. The political
philosophy of its leader,Leon Pinsker (1821-1891), greatly influenced
the work of the Committee. As a legally recognised grass roots
movement it was to play a significant role within the political
organisation of the Zionist Congress created by Theodore Herzl at the
turn of the century.

In
his early years, Pinsker had believed that assimilation and the
attainment of equal rights with his Russian gentile contacts would
resolve the Jewish problem. However, the 1871 Odessa pogrom and those
which followed, forced him to re-assess his views. Mere humanism and
enlightenment would not defeat anti-Semitism. After visiting Western
Europe, he became convinced that Jewish political independence and
national consciousness could be achieved only by self-help. His
pamphlet, ‘Auto-Emancipation’
published in 1882, asserted that Jewish reliance on the secular power
of the State was futile if the social and political grass roots
proletariat regarded the Jew as a foreigner, parasite, vagrant, or
else a millionaire exploiter of the poor, and without allegiance to
any State. He concluded that the root of gentile hatred for the Jews
was their lack of a homeland, which by their own efforts and
resources could be established either in Palestine or elsewhere.

Under the impetus of his ideas, the first seeds
of the Zionist
organisation were planted. In 1884, 36 delegates met in
Kattowitz, Germany (today Katowice, Poland) where the group tried to
secure financial help from Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and other
philanthropists to aid and support Jewish settlements in Eretz
Yisrael and to organise educational courses. By 1897 the Odessa
Committee counted over 4,000 members - even before Herzl organised
the First Zionist Congress, at which the World Zionist
Organization was created – and to which most of the Hovevei
Zion
societies became affiliated.

BILU

Politics,
however, could not be eliminated from Jewish emigration! 1882
saw the organisation of the ‘BILU’
group, its name - a Hebrew acronym - derived from a verse in
the Book of Isaiah (2:5) "Beit
Ya'akov Lekhu
Ve-nelkha"
("House of Jacob, let us go [up]"). Comprising fourteen
Marxist-influenced Russian ex-university students they emigrated with
the purpose of redeeming Eretz Yisrael and re-establishing a Jewish
State, by setting up farming cooperatives. With little money and no
farming experience they arrived in Palestine in July 1882 with the
intention of giving concrete expression to their three basic ideals:
national renaissance, migration to Eretz Yisrael and return to the
land.

After
making an unsuccessful attempt to attend the Jewish farm school in
Mikveh Israel, they joined a group of ten Hovevei Zion pioneers who
planned to establish an agricultural cooperative, called
“Rishon
LeZion” (The First to Zion).

The Hovevei Zion had succeeded in acquiring (by
way of donation) some
835 acres (3.4 km²) of land southeast of present-day Tel Aviv,
near
the Arab village of Ayun Kara. The initial combined efforts of the
two groups Hovevei Zion and BILU to establish their cooperative
failed through lack of farming experience among the settlers, the
poor nature of the soil and an almost total absence of water. As a
consequence, most of the BILU members left and some returned home.

However, in contrast to other Russian and
Rumanian Jewish immigrants,
the remnant of the BILU displayed a distinguishing characteristic:
their belief in the pre-eminent importance of ideas and organisation
and the need to form a party, formulate an explicit ideology, and set
an example by implementing their objectives and values through direct
action.

Although few members of BILU remained in Eretz
Yisrael, their ideas in relation to nationhood, the role of the
individual, and their socio-economic objectives left a deep imprint
in the collective agricultural kibbutz and moshava movements. These
were to be established under the impetus of the political Zionists
some fifteen years in the future, and were to be felt throughout the
entire history of the Jewish resettlement of Eretz Yisrael, down to
1948 and beyond.

(see Vital,
especially Chapter 4, pp. 65- 108)

Rothschild
Philanthropic Support

While political leaders appear and disappear
from the scene, behind
the power of any state its economic substructure exerts a decisive
influence. Such was the character of the Rothschild banking influence
in France and to a lesser extent in England. In 1875 Lord Nathan
Rothschild financed the British Government’s acquisition of
control
over the Suez Canal. The French branch of the family, headed by Baron
James Rothschild (1792-1868), followed by Baron Alphonse Rothschild
(1827-1905), rendered vast assistance to the French and other
European governments over many years. In particular, their oil
investments in Baku and delivery of the oil through the Suez Canal to
the Far Eastern markets, gave their financial house considerable
influence.

Unlike Alphonse, his younger brother, Baron Edmond
James (1835-1934), did not enter the family banking empire. Instead,
he devoted himself to art and culture. In the last decades of the
nineteenth century, however, he became involved in Jewish land
acquisition in Palestine. Motivated by both philanthropy and
investment, he responded to calls for financial and technical
assistance from the early Hovevei Zion and BILU settlements in
Palestine - Rishon LeZion and Zikhron Ya'akov among others.

On the other hand, Baron James did not envisage
his philanthropy
extending to long-term support for massive Jewish immigration into
Eretz Yisrael.

“Although
Rothschild was by far the single most important source of funding for
the Jewish settlements in Palestine, his intentions were primarily
for investment purposes. It was slow steady growth that he looked
forward to. Not the mass immigration of millions of "beggars"
into an area as crucial to his oil business as the Suez Canal region.
Certainly as volatile as Baku, Palestine and the surrounding Moslem
areas were susceptible to the same problems of ethnic disruption. An
Arab reaction to an influx of "infidel" Jews, carrying with
them the disease of western culture would spell disaster for the
region's peace.”Clifford
Shack, The
Armenian & Jewish Genocide Project that Eliminated the Ethnic
Conflict Along the Oil Transport Route From Baku to the Suez Canal
Regionhttp://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:3FcUhly86aMJ:www.geocities.com/cliff_shack/RothschildianGenocide.html+Rothschild+financing+Palestine+Projects&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk

Rothschild's
patronage was of two types: The first was full support (Rishon
LeZion, Zikhron Yaakov, Rosh Pina and Ekron) and the second was
partial (Petah Tikvah and others). He became the major address for
all problems in the early Jewish rural settlement movement (the
‘Yishuv).His support was
implemented by a French authoritarian bureaucracy, whose mentality
was alien to the settlers. Bureaucratic dictates did not sit well
with the more democratically and communally minded Russian
expatriates, who had migrated to escape such officialdom and with
which they were unable to work amicably. The level of disharmony was
such as to reach the level of revolt in several settlements. It
ultimately caused Baron James to transfer control of the twelve
settlements managed under his auspices to the Jewish Colonial
Association

This
type of bureaucratic patronage was the greatest problem of the Jewish
settlements during a 20-year
period and aroused sharp criticism. In retrospect, however, it is
recognized that Rothschild's bureaucracy also played a positive role.
It introduced new plant species into Jewish agriculture and
instructed the first settlers in the agriculture of the
country”
(Rochelle Mass, Rothschild
Boulevard,
http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1099
)

This notwithstanding, Rothschild played a major
role in the
development of the wine industry in Eretz Israel. He was a co-sponsor
of the Palestine Electric Corporation, the founder of smaller
industries and contributed funds to the establishment of the Hebrew
University.

While Rothschild was not initially a supporter
of the Zionist
Organisation under its founder, Theodore Herzl, in later years he
grew closer to Organization and participated with the Zionists in
preparatory work for the Balfour Declaration.

5. The
‘Dreyfus’ Case: The
Catalyst for Political Zionism

In
Western Europe, emancipation had failed to eliminate the latent
anti-Semitism which prevailed among European gentilebourgeoisieand
elites.

Jews
who had tried to become assimilated and integrated into the majority
culture came to the slow realisation that regardless of their efforts
they were still regarded in their host countries as aliens, even if
they conformed to the majority culture in their public
behaviour.

Independent of the conduct displayed by Jews in
public, and beyond their spheres of influence, political events
played their part in raising latent West-European anti-Semitism to
public awareness. A relatively insignificant incident involving a
single Jewish individual, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, had national
repercussions in France that shook the Jewish bourgeoisie to its
core. The ‘Affair‘ arose
out of an unjustified guilty verdict rendered by a French Court
Martial against an assimilated and obscure Jewish French Staff
officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus. The verdict, based on false charges
of espionage and forged documents, resulted in Dreyfus’
public
humiliation of being stripped of his military rank during which a
riotous Parisian mob shouted "Death to the Jews."

If Jews were to retain their
integrity, dignity and humanity in a country which hitherto had
preached egalitarianism and equality but had failed to live up to its
ideals, a solution alternative to assimilation had to be found. Only
until the Jews – as a people- recovered or reacquired
territory
lost after their forced dispersion nearly two millennia earlier,
relearned skills long forgotten, and acquired new skills and
education commensurate with the needs of a rapidly industrialising
and now global society, could they claim equality with other nations
and peoples.

To attain these objectives, Jews as a
people needed communal institutions and leadership of a sort
different from that which had prevailed in the past; secular
leadership capable of confronting and negotiating with the political
elites of the period, but also supported by an organisation with
adequate finance to implement its new and dramatic policy - finance
not only from the wealthy philanthropists, but from the grass roots.

Theodore
Herzl emerged as the right man for the right job at the right
time as the godfather of political Zionism

6.Jewish - Arab
Cultural Relations

a. Ottoman
Reaction to Early Jewish Migration to and Land Acquisition in
Palestine

By
the 1870’s the Jewish population in Jerusalem was already
greater
than that of the Muslims and Christians combined. For the first time
since the destruction of the Temple, Jews formed a majority in the
city. (Morgenstern Chap
VIII). However, by 1881, when the First Aliyah was in its
infancy, the Ottomans feared that Jewish immigration to Palestine in
an organised fashion would create a potential nationalist problem
similar to that which they had experienced in the Bulgarian uprising
– an uprising that threatened the multi-ethnic and
multi-national
character of the Empire. This fear moved the Porte to reverse some of
its more liberal immigration and land acquisition policies that
benefited the Jews but, in the face of foreign consular opposition,
the Ottomans vacillated and retreated.

In November 1881, however, the Porte
closed Palestine to Jewish immigration and then, eighteen months
later in March 1883, attempted to limit land acquisition by those
Jews who claimed foreign consular protection. Jews who were Ottoman
subjects were, for the time being, not so restricted.

By April 1884, Jewish immigration to
Palestine was suspended, in the light of a relatively significant
number of migrants who arrived without visible means of support.
However, between 1887 and 1888, the Porte capitulated under renewed
political pressure brought to bear on it by the foreign consular
officers, and the suspension on Jewish immigration was lifted, but
only for a short period during 1890-1891 when it was again
re-imposed.

The
Porte attempted to go further in 1892, prohibiting European Jews from
acquiring land in Palestine unless they accepted Ottoman citizenship
and waived any rights to foreign protection. Again foreign consular
pressure brought modification to the restrictions in 1893. (Kark,
p.361) Thus
matters remained
until the turn of the century. Jewish migration slowed to a trickle
as foreign philanthropic and institutional financial support waned.
Ottoman fears of mass immigration then receded somewhat, because,
although Rothschild financial support continued to be forthcoming for
the existing Jewish settlements and Arab fellahin continued
to be employed
by Jewish settlers, Jewish philanthropy did not at the time extend to
supporting mass Jewish immigration. In any case, the Sultan had other
matters to consider, namely the increasing restlessness of internal
political revolutionary movements, which began to evolve at the turn
of the century and became full-blown in 1908.

b. Immigrant Jewish Relations with
Arab Fellahin

It
is important to bear in mind that, apart from Asher Ginsberg
(1856-1927), known better as ‘Ahad
Ha’Am,’ – ‘One of the
People’ - the immigrants in the First Aliyah were more
concerned
about their own physical and economic survival than with the impact
which their presence might have on the Arab fellah.
They relied on the latter’s strength and agricultural
experience
and were happy to employ him. The main object of the First Aliyah was
to escape the pogroms of East Europe and particularly Russia and to
find refuge in Eretz Yisrael as part of a Jewish ingathering. It
remained for subsequent immigrants to emphasise the necessity for
Jews to reconnect with the Land through their own agricultural labour
and investment – and to create an ideological issue over
whether to
rely solely on Jewish labour to the near exclusion of the Arabs and
ultimately on how to bring about the establishment of a Jewish
national home.

Not all commentators saw Jewish
migration to Palestine through the same prism. By way of contrast,
Ahad Ha’am, after his visit to Palestine in 1891, reported on
the
prevalent hunger there, on Arab dissatisfaction and unrest, on
unemployment, and on emigration from Palestine. Consequently he
advocated the importance of reviving Hebrew and Jewish culture, both
in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Rather than pushing for an
immediate mass Jewish immigration to Palestine, he conceived it as a
Jewish cultural centre to which Jews would be attracted gradually
over time, until they could assume the burden of building a nation
independent of the largesse of outside benefactors.

As
long as Jewish migration remained slow and at a relatively low level,
Ginsberg envisaged that conflict between Arab and Jew could be
avoided.
However, given the potential of mass immigration, his
concern lay with the manner in which Jewish settlers related to the
Arab population. In an essay entitled ”The
Truth from the Land of Israel”
Ginsberg warned against the 'great error,' noticeable among Jewish
settlers, of treating the fellahin with contempt, of regarding them
as savages of the desert, a people similar to a donkey.’

"The Arab, like all
Semites, has a sharp mind and is full of cunning ... [They]
understand very well what we want and what we do in the country, but
... at present they do not see any danger for themselves or their
future in what we are doing and therefore are trying to turn to their
advantage these new guests ... But when the day will come in which
the life of our people in the Land of Israel will develop to such a
degree that they will push aside the local population by little
or
by much, then it will not easily give up its place."

The
behaviour of the immigrants disturbed him. They had not learned from
experience as a minority, but, like a slave who has become king,
"behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, infringe
upon their boundaries, hit them shamefully without reason, and even
brag about it."
The Arab did indeed respect strength, but only when the other side
used it justly. When his opponent's actions were unjust and
oppressive, then "he may keep his anger to himself for a time
... but in the long run he will prove to be vengeful and full of
retribution."

Prophetic words!

In 1913, after a correspondent
had complained of the contemptuous attitude of settlers and of the
Zionist Organisation's Palestine Office, towards the Arab fellah,
Ha'am wrote back,

"When I realise
that our brethren may be morally capable of treating another people
in this fashion and of crudely abusing what is sacred to them, then I
cannot but reflect: if such is the situation now, how shall we treat
others if one day we actually become the rulers of Palestine?"

While
this attitude may have been expressed and prevalent at the time,
there is no evidence that such conduct was universal. Neither should
it be forgotten that the new immigrants, never having being placed in
a ‘superior’ position to the indigenous
inhabitants, knew nothing
better than the Russian conduct to which they had been subjected for
centuries. Furthermore, even if they had acted differently towards
the Arab fellah,
it is unlikely that they could have behaved in a manner consistent
with the Arab cultural norms, some of which have been discussed
earlier in Chapter II. While subsequent events have shown differing
Jewish attitudes towards the Palestinian Arab population, there is
little doubt that Jewish expressions of superiority over their Arab
neighbours, especially immediately after the 1967 Six Days War, have
not been conducive to good relations between Arab and Jew.